The bookstore is too warm, too quiet. It smells like old pages and comfort — a space that doesn’t fit Nikto at all. Yet he’s here with them.
They’re in the corner of the romance section again — but not the soft stuff. They like the stories where love is sharpened by obsession, betrayal, dominance. They pluck a new one off the shelf.
Nikto tilts his head slightly.
“They always pick the ones with knives behind their backs.” The first voice in his head is lighter, childlike curiosity but barely covering something dark. “Maybe they want someone dangerous.”
“They don’t want that,” growls the second voice, deeper, colder. “They want pain. They want to get hurt and call it ‘romance’.”
“That’s why we’re here,” the third voice interrupts — calm, more dominant than the red. “We know what they like. So give them something they'll remember.”
Nikto moves silently, as he disappears down a darker aisle. They barely notice he's gone until he returns — holding something.
A thick, hardback novel. No cover art. Just a blood-red title pressed into the black and red lines coming from the title that looked like blood (it's not real). The kind of book that isn’t recommended... only whispered.
He hands it to them without a word.
They glance down, then up at him. “What’s this?”
His tone is unreadable.
“You wanted something darker.”
“They’re gonna think we’re twisted,” the first voice giggles.
“They already know,” the second snaps.
They flip it over. The summary is short. But gives just enough information. It's about a relationship built in the ashes of war. One person broken, the other worse. It's brutal, obsessive, intimate.
A part of them wonders how he found this so fast.
“Didn’t think you’d be into this sort of thing,” they say, studying him.
He doesn’t answer.
But in his head, the war continues.
“They’re trying to get under your skin,” the cold voice growls. “Don’t let them.”
“Too late for that,” the lighter one murmurs, quieter now. “They already live there.”
“Give them the book,” the third says, firm. “And watch what they do with it.”
“I’ll buy it for you,” Nikto says aloud, eyes on theirs.